Accountable Governance, Social Media and Citizen Engagement Session: World Bank Perspective and Global Lessons Dr. Simon Carl O’Meally, Governance Specialist, The World Bank 18 th National Conference on e-Governance Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, 30-31 January 2015.
Overview of the Presentation • PART I : Brief Background – World Bank Perspective on Accountable Governance and Citizen Engagement. • PART II: Some Big Global Lessons on this Topic • PART III: Snapshot of Some of World Bank Initiatives in this area in India.
Accountable Governance, Social Media and Citizen Engagement Session PART I: BRIEF BACKGROUND – ‘WORLD BANK’ PERSPECTIVE ON ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNANCE AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
WBG Two ‘New’ Twin Goals
GoI-WB Country Partnership Strategy 2013-2017 What is the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS)? • Based on GoI dialogue and priorities, analysis and broad consultations – sets out themes and priorities where WB seeks to contribute in the 4-year period. What are the key CPS focal areas?
Linking this to ‘Accountable Governance’ • ‘ Governance matters ’ for helping/hindering poverty reduction and development outcomes. • More accountable governance has intrinsic value (deepen democracy) and instrumental value (achieve better outcomes) – although ‘contested’. • Two main elements of accountability: 1. Answerability : are Power-holders answerable for their decisions to ‘the people’ (e.g. transparency/disclosure, channels for airing grievances/debating issues)? 2. Enforcement : Are there strong sanctions when power-holders err? (e.g. robust auditing, anti-corruption mechanisms)
Where does Social Media and Citizen Engagement come in? What do we mean by citizen engagement? • Citizen engagement is one – of various – mechanisms to strengthen accountability, governance, public sector capacity and delivery. • Encompasses pro-active involvement, oversight, inputs of citizens. • World Bank understands ‘engagement’ to be a ‘two - way’ process – listening, interacting with and taking action based on engagement (just putting information out, alone , does not constitute engagement). If implemented effectively it can help to improve development results: • Improve service delivery and access. • Strengthen state capacity. • Improve responsiveness to citizens (and poor). • Build state-citizen trust and reduce conflict.
Variety of Approaches to Engaging Citizens (1) TRANSPARENCY ( 2) ACCOUNTABILITY MAIN GOAL MAIN GOAL Disclosure, dissemination, and Feedback and holding individuals and demystification of information in a organizations responsible for their form that is accessible to citizens. actions and ensuring redress. Accountability/ TOOLS TOOLS Monitoring • Public reporting of expenditure • Citizen-Based Monitoring • Public Information Campaigns (e.g. • Citizen Scorecard notice boards) • Citizen Report Card • Budget Literacy Campaigns • Social Audit • Open Budgeting and Analysis • Financial Management •Citizens’ Charters • Procurement Monitoring • Disclosure/RTI Mechanisms • Public Expenditure Tracking • Integrity Pacts • Complaint Handling Transparency Participation • Grievance Redress Mechanism (4) HYBRID/CROSS-CUTTING • Public Hearings /c itizens’ Juries MAIN GOAL Combining government ‘supply’ and (3) PARTICIPATION citizen ‘demand’ pressures to bring about change. MAIN GOAL A two-way process in which • Rights-Based Approaches (e.g. stakeholders take active part in services, land, food, education) Hybrid/Cross-Cutting decision-making or implementation. • Decentralized/local governance • Building citizenship (e.g. voter • Participatory Decision Making education programs) • Forum for Local Problem-Solving • Citizen inclusion programs • Participatory Planning (affirmative action, reservations). • Participatory Budgeting • Strengthening/triggering accountability institutions • Participatory Management (ombudsmen, parliament, anti- corruption commissions etc.). • Community Management/CDD • Public-private • Community Contracting partnerships/networks. • User Membership in Decision- Making Bodies
Some Corporate Activities on Citizen Engagement (1) World Bank Target for Citizen Engagement in Projects • Under the current President, the Bank has recently targeted the achievement of ‘ beneficiary feedback in 100% of projects with clearly identified beneficiaries by Financial Year 18 (2018/2019) ’ . • Set up a president’s delivery unit to track progress against this throughout the Bank. • What contributed to deciding target? 1. Renewed focus on effectiveness and results. 2. Strengthened global trends that support increased civic engagement and accountable government 3. Increasing focus on the ultimate beneficiary of development interventions 4. Emerging evidence that citizen engagement can improve results under the right conditions (2) The Global Partnership For Social Accountability What is GPSA? • Supports civil society and governments to work together to solve critical governance challenges in developing countries; supports a range of constructive citizen engagement. • Over 200 partners from all sorts of different sectors and actors. How does it do its work? • Fund and grant-making mechanisms for CSOs in countries that have opted in to the GPSA. • Knowledge management (analysis, workshops, forums) • Network-building See: http://www.thegpsa.org/sa/
Accountable Governance, Social Media and Citizen Engagement Session PART II: SOME ‘BIG’ GLOBAL LESSONS ON WHAT CAN MAKE OR BREAK CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVES
A Range of Key Findings…
The Role of ICT/Social Media in Citizen Engagement Strengths • Reduces time and cost for engaging citizens – enabler then of more regular feedback. • ICT enables outreach (provides interaction channels beyond geographical barriers (e.g. rural people)) • ICT as a ‘crowd sourcer ’ /aggregator/analyzer of citizen views– enables aggregation and joint platforms. • Facilitation of participatory monitoring and co-management of public resources • Facilitation of timely and appropriate government response to citizens Pitfalls and Risks • The ICT ‘tool’ should not be seen as an end in itself. Need to also attend to bureaucratic, institutional, political changes to make engagement meaningful. Needs to be holistic – ICT alone rarely sufficient (e.g. need business process re-engineering, social change etc.) • Digital Divide – do not leave poorest or illiterates behind who may have weak ICT access or ICT literacy. • Don’t forget the ‘people’ side – face-to-face still matters. Limited or differing quality and effect of participation in comparison to face-to-face participation • Fear of participation due to privacy, internet security, and surveillance issues • Proliferation of engagement platforms can lead to overload • Sustainability issues – sometimes short-lived enthusiasm In sum, we need ICT plus! • If we agree that ICT and social media are ‘tools’ – it is also critical to understand, and address, the other elements that make citizen engagement ‘meaningful’… Here are some other key findings …
Key Findings on Citizen Engagement (1) • Need pro-active government action (‘supply’) as part of engagement (‘demand’) : Engagement , alone, is often insufficient. It needs to be supported by a concerted program of public sector reform to foster responses. Political ‘will’ critical (e.g. bring CM on board, engage MPs) to trigger changes as a result of engagement. • Need to build pro-engagement/accountability action between state and society actors – the ‘sandwich’ : Multiple cases very rarely about ‘good citizens’ vs. ‘bad governments’ – it is about pro-reform actors (from the state and society) working together to address an accountability problem. Use a ‘multi - pronged’ approach . Effective engagement often combines a range of engagement mechanisms including transparency, accountability and participation. • Inequality and poverty issues need some mitigation: Different citizens ‘engage’ differently (depending on their background, education, wealth etc.) and usually the stronger/wealthier citizens have a stronger voice. Build in ‘mitigating components’ for poor (e.g. outreach for women or illiterates).
Key Findings on Citizen Engagement (2) • Important to Build Engagement on ‘Popular’ Issues that matter to citizens Engagement may not be ‘automatic’ unless these are issues that citizens care about. People need to see the ‘payback’ and incentives to engage – seeing some impact from the engagement – or they can become disillusioned. • Need the ‘right’ type of information to flow from government to citizens and back. Need high-quality, user-friendly, appropriate information through appropriate media. But information alone is insufficient – citizens need to be able to use the information to help trigger action/sanctions to increase accountability. • Citizen engagement can build state-citizen trust – but it can also have the opposite effect if ‘token’ . Needs to be meaningful. Need to build a culture of trust to avoid reprisals.
Recommend
More recommend
